Whenever I go anywhere these days I always bring back chocolate because these chocolate tasting posts seem to be pretty popular. And today I have three new brands I’ve never seen before and we’re going to do Dutch chocolate vs Ukrainian chocolate.
In the Ukrainian corner:
Roshen. If you go to Ukraine, you’ll see Roshen stores everywhere. There are 34 in Kyiv alone and they really like their Christmas lights. It’s a Ukrainian brand, established in the mid-90s and having seen it on every single street, I had to taste test it.
My Roshen bar is a milk chocolate one, 90g. I immediately note it’s all labelled in English, not a Cyrillic character to be seen on the front. It’s a plastic pack which you can pull gently apart and more or less reseal, so that’s nice.
We also have two bars of Корона, or Korona in Latin letters, which is how I’m going to refer to it from here on. Korona is owned by Mondelez, which I’m taking as a good sign – Mondelez also own, among other things, UK’s Cadbury’s, Switzerland’s Toblerone, Switzerland’s Milka, Sweden’s Marabou and Greece’s Lacta. I have milk and dark Korona. They come in similar packaging to Roshen but it’s bright red, with a big splash of flavour-key colour across the top – light blue for milk and rich brown for dark. These two are both 85g.
In the Dutch corner:
Tony’s Chocolonely. This one has its social justice angle as well – the company was founded to make 100% slave-free & child labour-free chocolate. It’s crazy about chocolate, serious about people. This one isn’t labelled in English – in fact, while Korona doesn’t contain an English or Latin word on the entire packet, it’s very easy to see what variant it is. Tony’s differentiates with different colour themes and then just a stripe down the right-hand side to explain what flavour it is. I have a red one which is milk 32% and a blue one which is dark milk 42%. They’re both 180g.
So, let’s compare the chocolate. Korona’s milk is just the tiniest bit darker than Roshen’s and Tony’s is darker than either of them. Korona’s dark is a little darker than Tony’s dark. Tony’s is made of random shattered shapes – I guess we’re sticking with this crazy chocolate thing. Korona has nicely rounded pilow-like pieces and Roshen is conventional flat rectangles.
Let’s taste!
Ok, Tony’s feels good to bite because it’s chunky. Takes a moment to warm up in your mouth but you know what, I like it.
Korona… I think it tastes slightly richer but feels less thick, somehow. That might be the shape of the pieces. Tony’s is winning so far.
Roshen. This one is definitely my least favourite of the three and actually, it’s got a hint of something not so chocolatey. Is it nut? I think there’s a hint of hazelnut in the distance there, there’s definitely something just slightly off. The packaging says vanilla flavouring but I can’t compare Korona because its ingredient list is in Ukrainian, Georgian and Moldovan.
Tony’s wins the milk chocolate test. Now for the dark.
Well, Korona tastes like dark chocolate. It’s 56% cocoa and it tastes like Bourneville although it’s hard to compare exactly when I don’t have a bar handy. Nice little reminder why I usually get mint, orange or hazelnut paste to compare to the milk.
And Tony’s. My understanding of the packet is that this is only 42% cocoa, which is why it doesn’t taste quite so medicinal to me. I’d still choose the milk over the dark but that was the lesser of the two evils.
Conclusions: Tony’s does good milk chocolate and adequate dark chocolate. Korona does good milk chocolate and I’m sure the dark is great if you like that sort of thing, which I don’t. Roshen is… fine. If I was in Ukraine again, I’d definitely pick up Korona again.